"Unfortunately, at least according to the city watch, it would appear that he has already left the city, though there is every indication that he plans on returning as he has maintained his lodgings at the Traveler's Cloak Inn, paid in advance."

Selfaril fingered his carefully coifed beard with a neatly manicured fingernail that he kept sharp enough to draw blood.

"Issue a warrant for his arrest and for the thespian as well," the High Blade ordered. "Search his lodgings immediately and confiscate his belongings. If anyone asks what he is suspected of, be vague, but leave the implication that they are both involved with a plot to kill my dear sweet wife, just to make it interesting."

"Yes, your majesty," Rickman replied, admiring the deceitful mastery that the High Blade choreographed as he tightened the noose around the Thayan bitch's neck. "And are there any new instructions concerning your brother, sire?"

The High Blade gave his second a glare that could only be described as a death look.

"Rickman," Selfaril said in an ominously controlled voice, "you are quite valuable to me, but not so valuable that I would hesitate having you permanently removed in a millisecond should the mood strike me. It would be in your best interest to refrain in the future from the use of any familial terms in my presence. Do you understand?"

"Yes, your majesty," Rickman replied, his lone eye averted and downcast.

"As for the prisoner," Selfaril concluded, "there are no new orders. I can't imagine that we will have to keep him alive much longer. Soon he will be used to embarrass the Tharchioness by exposing her seditious plot, and after that, he will be disposed of. For the time being, he's harmless, and he's not going anywhere."

At the Traveler's Cloak Inn:

Passepout, though he had slept well past the midday point, was still quite groggy, and slightly queasy from the previous night's merriment.

A sensible individual would probably have taken things easy, until his hangover had passed. Unfortunately the chubby thespian's mammoth appetite had no desire to be ruled by common sense, and as a result Passepout soon found himself in the dining room placing a food order that at once combined the sustenance and bulk of a midnight snack, breakfast, brunch, and lunch.

"You'll be sorry," the usually understanding and accommodating Dela advised.

The chubby thespian just harumphed back at her, trying to clear his head of the miasma of Morpheus, and paying no mind to the worldly wisdom offered by the best hostler in all Mulmaster.

When the plate was placed in front of him, he immediately dug in without so much as a thank you or other acknowledgement for the efforts of the hard working innkeeper.

True to the advisement of Dela, he was midway through his second plateful when his stomach revolted, and his faced turned a sickly color of pea green.

Dela, who had been keeping a close eye on her least favorite guest of the moment, decided that she had taken quite enough abuse up to this point. She strode over to the chair that was straining under the weight of the heavy thespian and, taking him by the collar, none too gently escorted him to the door.

"There will be no getting sick in the Traveler's Cloak Inn for as long as I'm still the proprietor," she sternly instructed. "I don't care if you are a friend of Volothamp Geddarm's, or not. You are an embarrassment to all of the well-mannered gentlemen who have passed through these doors before you. I don't care where you go, just don't come back here until you have learned yourself some manners."

The portly thespian tried to protest but found himself unable to hold back the upcoming deluge from his stomach and formulate words at the same time. Passepout instead concentrated on just keeping from passing out.

Releasing the actor's collar, and with a little bit of encouragement from the sole of her shoe, Dela propelled the green-faced thespian out into the Mulmaster city streets, where the human projectile quickly wandered off, and passed out.

Moments later, Dela's afternoon tea was interrupted by a contingent of Hawks with a warrant for the arrest and confiscation of goods for both Volothamp Geddarm and Passepout, son of Idle and Catinflas.

Dela, the perfect innkeeper, informed the guards that both guests were no longer on the premises, and that if either of them returned, she would immediately inform the local authorities.

Mentally she added in her own mind, once I've warned them and sent them on their way, of course.

Dela had no desire to alienate either the local authorities or her guests, which is probably why she was considered to be a model innkeeper for all Faerun.

In the dungeon of Southroad Keep:

A light was flashed once again through the window in Rassendyll's cell, when the guard retrieved the plate that had previously borne the slop that had been dinner. As the footsteps of the guards retreated off into the distance, Rassendyll waited for the return of his visitor.

Seconds stretched into moments, moments into hours, hours into immeasurable blocks of time that felt like years, yet the abbe Hoffman did not return.

Rassendyll reflected as he waited. Before the arrival of the dwarf, he had despaired and welcomed death, accepting it and his own continued captivity as inevitable and beyond his own ken.

The appearance of the cheerful dwarf had changed all of that. Maybe his inevitable fate was not all that cut and dried after all. True, his magical abilities and secrets had left him, and he was imprisoned in a hideous mask of iron in the bowels of a Mulmaster dungeon, but no matter what he had thought before, he was far from helpless and the time for action had arrived.

Rassendyll decided that it was time to take control of his destiny for the first time in his cloistered life. If an old dwarf has the spark of life within him, why not a mage-in-training?

Checking the small window in the door for a guard who might overhear his actions, and finding the coast to be clear, he moved away the blocking stone from the tunnel entrance, and with great care to avoid the telltale sounds of metal on rock caused by the hitting of the mask against the dungeon wall, Rassendyll shimmied through the entrance and crawled through the dwarf's tunnel.

The girth of the dwarf's torso necessitated a wide tunnel so the masked prisoner had little trouble moving through it. Within seconds, he arrived at its apparent end, and carefully pushed a stone not unlike the one on his end of the tunnel away, and hauled himself up into the dwarf's cell.

Hoffman was resting with his back against the cell wall. His eyes were closed and his breathing was unduly labored.

Rassendyll's heart sank. It appeared that his newly found reason for living was in his final hours.

As the masked mage moved the stone in place, he accidentally hit his head. The clang, soft as it was, announced his presence, and the dwarf opened his eyes.

"I have company, I see," Hoffman said with a weak grin.

"Good manners required that I return the neighborly visit," Rassendyll replied, approaching the infirm dwarf. He was shocked by how sickly the dwarf now appeared, when he had seemed so robust, not counting the coughing fit, when he had visited Rassendyll's cell earlier.

Hoffman instinctively read the look of surprise that existed beneath the mask on his fellow prisoner's face. "I hope you don't mind me not going to the effort of casting a keeping up appearances spell. It would take a bit too much out of me at the present moment."

"Not at all," Rassendyll replied, his grin obscured by the iron mask.